


Aubrey Contemplates

by Lunah_Peixvey



Category: Amnesty - Fandom, The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Ashes are actually good for trees, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Minor Character Death, No Dialogue, Not Beta Read, The Adventure Zone: Amnesty, it's her mom, spoilers for episode 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-20
Updated: 2018-12-20
Packaged: 2019-09-23 05:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17073980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunah_Peixvey/pseuds/Lunah_Peixvey
Summary: I wrote this in a stint while listening to "Priscilla Contemplates" from The Dolls of New Albion. Felt like doing some good hurt comfort.





	Aubrey Contemplates

Wood ash, helpful for trees in acidic soil. Aubrey stared at the metal urn freezing between her always warm hands. Human ash, helpful only if pH value is lowered and sodium is treated.

The home was abandoned after the fire, Aubrey gone on the road and her father unable to deal with the choking feeling of smoke that never seemed to stop or leave the area. It wasn’t hard for her to take a trip up there (sleeping in her van when she could sleep), and gather the ashes into an urn and take it back. Take it back into Kepler (new home, no fire yet), and shut herself in her room staring at the urn.

It was only after Duck knocked on her door with sad eyes and food that Aubrey realized she needed to do more than to just take ashes.

There’s a soft silence to this night, to this night right now as Aubrey stands outside in the cold. Cold in a clinical sense, an objective sense. Subjectively, Aubrey was toasty as she lightly heated the metal of the shovel to better break ground. It wasn’t back breaking, but the steady rhythm of down, dig, toss repeat allowed Aubrey’s mind to wander. 

Wander to the skeletal remains of her old home (was that her or Ned?), wander to the last conversation she had with her mother. The last conversation she had with her father. The feeling of getting sucked into the crystal. The terror of dealing with things so much bigger than her. The PizzaHut sign crashing down down down down down-

Aubrey jumped back as the wooden handle of the shovel burst to ash in her hands. A breath taken through the nose and not released. Aubrey knelt down and slowly twisted the top off of the urn.

She upturned it into the hole she had made, carefully and methodically (ever motion thought about because if she thinks about anything else she’ll think of the creak of that goddamn sign) mixing it in with the dirt as she gently let the sapling drop down into the hole and covered it up.

Aubrey doesn’t know how long she was kneeling in front of it before she saw the familiar soft (soft like a nightlight, like a sunrise, like a sunset, soft like a heartbeat) glow of Dani kneel beside her and tenderly (oh so tender) wrapped a heavy blanket around her.

Her next move was intimately reflexive, the shift to hold Dani and to bury her face in her neck (a thousand vampire jokes from the past bubble up). The steady beat of her heart calming and allowing Aubrey to release her breaths as she began to sob.

Sob like a child who had lost their mother, sob like letting go and taking in and letting everything wash over her. Like a tidal wave ready to knock her down and make her fall down down down down.

To Dani’s credit, she stayed silent. Merely holding Aubrey and letting her get it all out.

Aubrey fell. Knocked down and gasping for air.

Dani caught her. Steady like the shore and the rock and the arms of a lover who keep her comforted and warmed.

Aubrey contemplates. Dani comforts.


End file.
